IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-01980632.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The origins of human prosociality: Cultural group selection in the workplace and the laboratory

Author

Listed:
  • Patrick François

    (Genomic Research Laboratory, Service of Infectious Diseases; - HUG - Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève)

  • Thomas Fujiwara
  • Tanguy van Ypersele

    (GREQAM - Groupement de Recherche en Économie Quantitative d'Aix-Marseille - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

Human prosociality toward nonkin is ubiquitous and almost unique in the animal kingdom. It remains poorly understood, although a proliferation of theories has arisen to explain it. We present evidence from survey data and laboratory treatment of experimental subjects that is consistent with a set of theories based on group-level selection of cultural norms favoring prosociality. In particular, increases in competition increase trust levels of individuals who (i) work in firms facing more competition, (ii) live in states where competition increases, (iii) move to more competitive industries, and (iv) are placed into groups facing higher competition in a laboratory experiment. The findings provide support for cultural group selection as a contributor to human prosociality. As predicted by cultural group selection, increases in firm-level competition raise the generalized trust of workers.

Suggested Citation

  • Patrick François & Thomas Fujiwara & Tanguy van Ypersele, 2018. "The origins of human prosociality: Cultural group selection in the workplace and the laboratory," Post-Print hal-01980632, HAL.
  • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01980632
    DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aat2201
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Perez-Alvarez, Marcello & Strulik, Holger, 2021. "Nepotism, human capital and economic development," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 211-240.
    2. Teevrat Garg & Caterina Gennaioli & Stefania Lovo & Gregor Singer, 2023. "Can competition reduce conflict?," Discussion Papers 2023-07, Nottingham Interdisciplinary Centre for Economic and Political Research (NICEP).
    3. Christian Cordes, 2019. "The promises of a naturalistic approach: how cultural evolution theory can inform (evolutionary) economics," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 29(4), pages 1241-1262, September.
    4. Ma, Yin-Jie & Jiang, Zhi-Qiang & Podobnik, Boris, 2022. "Predictability of players’ actions as a mechanism to boost cooperation," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    5. Guanghua Han & Yida Zhai, 2024. "The association between food insecurity and social capital under the lockdowns in COVID-hit Shanghai," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(1), pages 130-147, January.
    6. Schilpzand, Annemiek & de Jong, Eelke, 2023. "Do market societies undermine civic morality? An empirical investigation into market societies and civic morality across the globe," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 208(C), pages 39-60.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01980632. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.